


A Needed Conversation

by nikonic



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 18:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14243244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikonic/pseuds/nikonic
Summary: Reinhard causes a lot of trauma. He is, after all, a trickster god. After leaving him powerless and frozen in his wreck of an apartment, Kady and Julia finally hash out their feelings.





	A Needed Conversation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smayumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smayumi/gifts).



> As usual, I own nothing. smayumi requested a story about the conversation our leading ladies finally have after confronting Reinhard. This is vaguely what came of that request. 
> 
> Reviews, comments, and requests are always encouraged. Thanks!

Julia fidgets. Knees to her chest, she sits on the couch in the living room of the Cottage. Over and over again, her hands wring in her lap in movements that almost look like spell casting if the woman still needed her hands to do that. Kady sighs, dropping the quest book back to the table. “Could you make less noise,” Kady groans, fully aware that Julia hasn’t actually made a sound. “Your anxiety is loud as shit, and I haven’t had enough whiskey for that or the day we’ve had.” The battle magician glances around the room at the smattering of their friends and sighs yet again, that deeply afflicted going-to-regret-this sigh that is a trademark response in Kady’s repertoire. “C’mon.” Julia follows easy, focusing her attention on the weight of Kady’s hand around her wrist. At least that’s her intent, but seeing Reinhard face-to-face brought forth an utter shitload of trauma she has yet to deal with.

“What’s going on with you,” Kady wonders aloud, now safely in their bedroom, where she can let her ironclad control over her emotions slip ever so slightly. Gingerly Kady draws Julia’s dark waves away from her face, tucking them sweetly behind her ear. Julia latches onto the contact, pressing her head into Kady’s shoulder and twining her arms tightly around the battle magician’s waist. For her part, Kady holds Julia, slightly rocking on the balls of her feet in a feeble attempt to soothe the other woman. This is far from her forte. She’s great at battle magic (when there was magic), and she’s great at punching people (thankfully no magic needed there). Consoling her goddess-esque girlfriend after confronting the murdering, raping, son-of-a-bitch trickster god - nope, definitely not in Kady’s wheelhouse. 

“Seeing him just puts me on edge,” Julia whispers, the words muffled by her proximity to Kady’s shoulder. “Even when he has no power, I hate it, but I still wouldn’t have been able to kill him. If it had come down to that, and I don’t know why. I should want him dead.”

Kady nods, listening attentively as Julia’s words mirror some of her own thoughts. Emphasis on some. “You’re a better person than I am,” Kady insists with a kiss to the top of Julia’s head. “It doesn’t matter how you think you should feel, Jules. You were a victim. You are a survivor. You feel what you feel, and that’s all there is to it. Whatever that is- whether it’s vengeful rage as it once was or fear or even confusion- whatever it is, you feel it and that’s enough.” 

If Julia takes the truth in Kady’s statement to heart is up for debate, and the almost-goddess steam rolls into a conversation she knows will make Kady’s teeth grind. “And you,” she challenges softly. “You wanted him dead. For them, for you, for me. You wanted revenge. And now?”

It’s a testament to Kady’s love for Julia that the battle magician even takes a beat to check in with herself for an honest answer instead of brushing it off in the usual Kady-has-no-feelings way. “I did,” she answers finally. “I really did. What he did to our friends, what he did to you - I wanted him to suffer. Right or wrong, I wanted him to pay for what he did to the people I care about.” Stepping away, Kady runs her fingers through her hair, fighting the urge to brush all of this under the rug yet again and call it a day. “At the barn, that day, there was none of that closure. We worked for months. I killed someone, Jules, to harvest magic, and no matter how that came about, it’s not okay.” 

Julia watches in a mixed bag of awe and apprehension. Outside of drug overdoses and drinking binges, this version of Kady - raw, pained, and tortured- is new. Julia wants nothing more than to curl around her love and comfort her in a way she couldn’t when her shade was missing. “I was pissed. Part of me still is, but I told you I’d try to get passed it. Today, as much as it fucking sucked seeing him and still in Richard’s body no less, I saw for myself how powerless he is, how downright miserable he is, and that makes me feel better. It feels like closure. Or as close to closure as I’m going to get in this lifetime or any other. I’m not too good at this whole feelings thing.”

“She is beauty. She is grace. She will punch you in the face,” Julia recites with a small smirk, giving the conversation some of the comic relief it definitely needs for Kady to find her footing again. Kady shoots her questioning eyebrow. “When asked to describe you, that’s pretty much my go-to phrase. I mean the number of people you’ve punched in the face is exceptionally high, and beauty and grace... I’m still waiting for a personal fashion show of that gold and red dress.” Kady tips her head back and barks a laugh. “See. It’s fitting.”

“Whatever you say. You are the goddess,” Kady snarks with a playful smile, relieved that the conversation has been had and more so that it’s done. “Back downstairs then? The sooner we get that 6th key, the better, and there’s not a whole lot of questing to be done up here.”

Julia waggles her eyebrows suggestively. “I mean... there’s plenty of questing to be done. Just not for the actual quest.” Her gaze is heavy as it trails down Kady’s body. “If you catch my drift.”

“You’re about as subtle as a nuclear bomb. Of course I caught your drift. However, if we leave Quentin up to his own devices, he’s likely to do something remarkably stupid in the name of the quest, so we are going back downstairs like reasonably responsible adults, and you can sit on the couch and replace fidgeting with anxiety with fidgeting with horniness. Sound like a plan,” Kady teases, her boots sounding loudly against the old wooden steps. She sneaks a kiss to Julia’s cheek before they have an audience again and hustles away to rejoin their friends downstairs. 

For a long moment, Julia stands between two stairs, watching that whirlwind of a woman scamper away, dark ringlets bouncing with each heavy step. She knows what she said, that she wouldn’t be able to kill Reinhard if it had come down to it. She also knows without a shadow of a doubt that isn’t entirely true. Julia knows that if I came down to protecting Kady, she’d kill him without so much blinking an eye. The spark of magic in her chest tingles with electricity, almost to confirm the absolute truth of her need to protect Kady at all costs. She sits with that new information a beat longer, the power of her love for the other woman far from surprising, before continuing her path down the stairs to rejoin their friends.


End file.
